Teaching impact
“WHAT do great teachers do?” I was asked this question recently. While there is no ‘right’ answer, there is an obvious and simplistic one. Great teachers don’t just teach; they connect with students in ways that make learning inspiring. Great teachers instil a hunger to know and do more. Great teachers help students enhance their skills. Great teachers create a love of learning and empower their students.
On World Teachers’ Day today, it’s vital to revisit the role of teachers in the lives of their students. The impact of teaching doesn’t necessarily come from results — that is a small part of a teacher’s role. World Teachers’ Day reminds us that a teacher’s role encompasses much more than producing outcomes and enabling achievement.
Their influence echoes through communities, workplaces, and nations. Interestingly, in Pakistan, one in four public primary schools are single-teacher schools. For thousands of students, their single teacher is not only responsible for delivering curriculum content but is also a nurturer, mentor, guide, and role model. A teacher has the power to create or break possibilities for students and to build or deflate self-esteem in children. Great teachers invest time and patience in their students’ potential. They don’t give up when faced with silence, procrastination, or defiance. They know how to steer their student towards self-belief and celebrate small steps forward. It is these exceptional qualities that students remember in a teacher long after they leave school.
Students face hundreds of challenges in an increasingly complex and uncertain environment. Many have never seen family stability or received due care from a loved one. When students interact with teachers, they look for an adult who believes in their ability. More often, students work for a teacher than for a subject and do well to fulfil their teachers’ expectations.
It’s vital to revisit the role of teachers in the lives of students.
Steering expectations, commitment to building students’ confidence, and believing in their potential are qualities embedded in the personality and skills of a great teacher. World Teachers’ Day celebrates these ordinary daily miracles that nurture, protect, and help young minds bloom.
Unlocking potential starts with developing intrinsic motivation, which is a student’s willingness and drive to learn without external incentives or pressure. Motivation is cultivated through a wide-ranging list of factors that contribute to holistic development. Well-being, social and emotional development in the early years, 21st-century competencies, progress markers such as learning portfolios, etc, are all part of a package that builds motivation. How independently and willingly students work is an indicator of the collective impact of this effort.
Many successful education systems globally recognise the need to assess teaching and learning through these indicators across school levels, not just through test results. The success of teachers rests on how well they implement these key indicators and how they use their judgement to do so. The impact of teaching and learning is seen in how well students respond in class, how they manage work independently, how they regulate their schedules and cope with the demands on their time, and how communicative their teachers are. In Singapore, for example, emphasis is on the thinking process, character development, values, resilience, and social and emotional well-being. When these key markers are in place, academic achievement ensues.
Academic achievement is usually the outcome of a structured process focused on evidence-informed efforts leading up to excellence. It tracks what the students know and can demonstrate, not what they have memorised. Positive learning environments are not created by chance. They are the product of a collaborative and connected teachers’ community. When teachers are aligned in common goals through shared portfolios, presentations, and discussions, what follows is alignment across the board. The collective success of the teaching community presents itself in student engagement, high attendance, motivation, and a drive to achieve results.
The impact of successful teaching can also be seen in the development of transferable skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, problem-solving, and resilience. These competencies lead to long-term impact that prepares students for future education, employment, and life beyond school.
Successful teachers create environments where students thrive, not just survive, and the greatest impact is seen through student achievement in a range of key areas, which are all important if we are to produce responsible and capable citizens.
The writer is a teacher educator, author and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. The views above are her own and do not reflect those of her employer.
X: @nedamulji
Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2026
